Campbell U.S. Pat. No. 1,431,930; Billi et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,868,009; and Munsch U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,212 each disclose rotary apparatus for transferring articles without changing the orientation of the same. Kovara U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,695 is representative of a starwheel for transferring articles in an oriented position around its periphery from one conveyor mechanism to another.
British Patent Application Publication 2100696 discloses a machine for forming, filling and sealing cartons and comprised of eight work stations, namely a straw and sealing tape applicator station, a carton blank wrapping and folding station, a seam and one end bonding station, a carton rotator and conveyor transport station, an other end closure preform station, a filler station, an other end closure sealing station, and a carton ejector station. At the seam and one end bonding station, every carton blank is transferred onto a rotary crossbar mandrel having a horizontal axis, and through a series of operations, a side seam of the carton is sealed, and one end closure of the carton is formed and sealed. At the carton rotator and conveyor transport station, every carton is removed from the crossbar mandrel, turned through a right-angle about its own longitudinal axis, which is horizontal, and inserted upon a conveyor on which the carton remains until ejected from the machine.
Allen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,059 discloses a packaging machine for forming, filling and sealing cartons, in which machine cartons are indexed in pairs through various work stations to accomplish forming, filling and sealing of the cartons. The forming of the bottom closures of the cartons is performed upon a rotary turret having a vertical axis. The turret is stepped about its axis to bring the cartons into the stations in turn and is of a type which includes two mandrels at each station and which indexes two mandrels from one station to the next station. From the turret, the bottom-closed, open-topped cartons are advanced stepwise linearly by a chain conveyor through various stations in which the cartons are filled and top closures thereof are formed. A difficulty with this machine is that a carton having its top and bottom closures orientated parallelly to each other and a carton having its top and bottom closures orientated perpendicularly to each other require differing machine layouts, especially in respect of the top and bottom closure forming stations.
Various sizes of carton have been introduced over many years. A one-liter gable-topped carton was introduced shortly before the Hitler War, with a half-gallon (or two-liter) gable-topped carton appearing at about the end of that War. Each carton sleeve has its bottom closed by folding-in and sealing of bottom closure panels, is then filled and has its top closed by folding-in and sealing of top closure panels. Each closure includes two major panels at respective opposite sides of the sleeve. In the half-gallon carton sleeve, the two major panels of the top closure are initially substantially co-planar with the two major panels of the bottom closure. However, in the liter carton sleeve the two major panels of the top closure initially lie in planes substantially perpendicular to those in which lie the two major panels of the bottom closure. Generally, those cartons in which the gable top major panels are orientated the same as those of the bottom closure are called "standard fifth panel" cartons and those cartons in which the gable top major panels are orientated 90.degree. from those of the bottom closure are called "reverse fifth panel cartons".
Historically, the forming, filling and sealing of these standard fifth panel cartons and reverse fifth panel cartons were carried out on separate machines, an operation offering little flexibility and involving relatively high investment.
Since the mid-1960's, a machine to form, fill and seal both the half-gallon carton and the one-liter carton has been increasingly used. The machine includes a spider rotatable about a horizontal axis and having its arms in the form of respective mandrels upon which the carton sleeves are mounted and then bottom-closed. The bottom-closed cartons are transferred in turn from the mandrels to pockets of a chain conveyor for subsequent filling and then top-folding and sealing. The top-sealing is performed by sealing jaws. Either the bottom-closed half-gallon carton sleeves or the bottom-closed one-liter carton sleeves need to be turned about their own axes through 90.degree. (relative to the one-liter carton sleeves or the half-gallon carton sleeves, as the case may be) before they arrive at the top sealing jaws, so that their major panels of their top closures are correctly orientated relative to the jaws when they arrive at the top sealing station. In order that the selected design of carton sleeve should be turned through 90.degree. about its own axis, there is provided between the spider and the chain conveyor a relatively complicated transfer mechanism including a suction cup which is rotatable about its own axis and is spatially displaceable. The mandrels in turn present their respective bottom-closed carton sleeves to the suction cup which is advanced to seize the bottom closure of the carton sleeve and is then withdrawn to remove the carton sleeve from the mandrel and to transfer it to a pocket of the chain conveyor. For the selected carton sleeve which is to be turned through 90.degree., the suction cup is rotated through 90.degree. about its own axis while carrying out the transfer. Not only is this transfer mechanism relatively complicated, but it requires significant space. A machine similar to that just described is disclosed in Guzzardo Reissue Patent Re26656.
European Patent 0355063 discloses a packaging system in which carton sleeves are sealingly closed at their bottoms while received upon respective mandrels, the open-topped cartons so formed are removed from the mandrels and filled, and the filled cartons are sealingly closed at their tops. Between the bottoms being sealingly closed and the cartons being filled, half-gallon cartons are turned through a right-angle about their own axes to bring their top closure sealing sub-panels into a correct orientation for top-sealing. For enabling such turning, the mandrels are mounted on a turntable so as to be turnable about their own axes by a cam displaceable between operative and inoperative positions. The turntable is of a rotary turret which indexes the carton sleeves through various stations mostly concerned with bottom-closing.